Death Doesn't Want Me
by The Crystalline Alchemist
Summary: Ed!torture. Eventual EdWin and AlMei    It had been half a year. Half a year since he'd spoken to or seen his brother. Half a year since his brother disappeared. Half a year he'd been sure his brother was dead. - Alphonse Elric
1. Broken

Death Doesn't Want Me

Part I- Broken

The broken windows allow only a small amount of light to filter through. The light they allowed shone too high up to bring any brightness to the darkness surrounding me. The floor is damp, the air full of the stench of blood and dust. I am strapped to the ground, gasping crudely for air. They have taken my auto-mail prosthetics but the metal ports still remained on my useless stumps. I gasp. I feel the heat mounting. Soon the coals beneath me will begin to burn my already raw back. Yet, that is the least of my pain, for the metal ports will rapidly heat until they turn white, searing my already scarred skin.

The form of torture would change weekly as they tried in vain to find new, more effective approaches. Yet they would always resort to this method, for it was the most effective yet. The burning of my skin by the metal was ten times the pain of my nerves being attached to auto-mail, no, it was twenty times the pain of the auto-mail surgery, no not even that. The pain was so unbearable it almost countered that of which I had felt when I thought I had lost my little brother forever.

I clenched my teeth together, determined not to allow any of my screams to escape. The skin of my back is too burnt to feel any pain. Though, now the metal ports begin to burn white.

I began to scream, an in-human scream of despair that soon fades into dying moans. Though the pain, no longer fazes me. The pain means I am closer to dying. I beg for death to come, and come soon. For, they had already broken me. I desire to die, for there was no way I deserve to live after what they have forced me to do.

Soon, the alchemists in the white coats return to unstrap me and drag me back to the darkness of my solitary prison. Tomorrow they will force me to lie on my stomach, my face being charred by the unforgiving heat of the coals. I can feel the burnt skin flake off as my back is rubbed raw once again by the crude floor. We arrive at my cell and they throw me in against the wall with such force that I hit my head and soon began to choke up blood.

I am left with nothing but my bloody, misshapen body and the dredged up memories of my past life. Of the promise I had never fulfilled to my little brother. Of the girl I had never told my feelings to, of the girl who had probably cried over me. I welcome death, but know they won't allow it to come.


	2. Unbearable

II- Unbearable

It has been half a year. Half a year since I've spoken with my brother. Half a year since I've seen my brother. Half a year since my brother had disappeared. Half a year I've been sure my brother is dead.

I cannot face the long sleepless nights, reliving the last time I had seen my older brother, on our way back home to Resembool. I had left for a mere second only to return and find my brother gone. In a mere second I had let my only brother be taken and killed.

Winry had caught me many times, desperately attempting to scrape off the blood seal that bonds me to this cruel Earth. Each time she would kneel by my side, grab the offending hand, and hold it in hers. She would gaze up at me, trying desperately not to cry, yet always failing.

"Please Al." She would plead, "Don't. He wouldn't want you to." And then she would leave, so shaken by the sobs bursting from her chest, that she could barely stand, let alone walk. I had only halted in my attempts when Winry had informed Mei; and Mei had gone hysterical and now refused to leave my side.

No one in this house has slept an entire night for half a year. Winry and Auntie Pinako too distraught with grief, and Mei attempting to stay up all night to watch over me, Ultimately, Mei would always lose the battle against sleep around midnight. Until the morning she contently slept there nestled in my steel lap. As if I would actually do that to her. Do it while she was asleep in my lap, only for her to awake and find the armor that is my body emptier than usual.

Winry has barely spoken in half a year, her occasional pleads with me are the only conversations she has. She has stopped tinkering with Automail altogether. In fact, whenever Auntie has a patient that is fitted with the steel prothstetics, this look splays itself on herface and confines herself to her room for days on end. When she isn't in her room or moping around the house, she stands out on her balcony, looking out over that nostalgic winding road. As if she was waiting to see him appear on the bleak horizon, walking back home.

I say 'him', because none of us can bare to say his name.


	3. Shackles

Death Doesn't Want Me

Part III- Shackles

The metal chains clanked as they unlocked the prison's gates. This is the sole indicator of morning in the darkness. They slide a shallow dish of water into my cell. Before I gratefully begin to lap the water basin dry, I catch sight of my reflection. My face is burnt beyond and attempt at recognition. It looks as if Mustang had caught a hold of me with the notion I was the enemy. I wave of nausea emerges from the pit of my stomach at the familiar name. I force myself to forget it all again. My wounds from the day before last have begun to scab, but will soon be reopened and gouged deeper.

If my calculations are on track, I should get my weakly food tomorrow, it was usually a few crumbs of stale bread, but if I was lucky, it would be dog food. It was an ironic meal that would always bring back the memories of my past. In the past I had been a dog, a dog of the military. I lap the water basin dry, and as I do, they seize me by my remaining arm, and begin to drag me away.

As we enter the main room, typically used for torture, I catch sight of the fire pit. The coals are dark with lack of the licking heat. Did that mean new torture today?

A glint of silver catches my eye. In the middle of the dusty floor lies a solitary, empty suit of armor, in the middle of a familiar circle drawn crudely in blood. I begin to shake involuntarily. _No, not again. _

They push me to the ground, placing the smooth, red gem into my burnt palm. I can feel the screams resonating through my skull. I drag myself to the center of the wretched circle, knock the helmet off the armor, and take blood from one of the many reopened wounds on my back. I draw the infernal seal. I remove myself from the circle, fully waiting to get this sinful action over with. I wait for the arrival of the usual death row inmate.

I begin to shake with sobs. I always do. To commit a soul to internal imprisonment inside that cold suit of armor, to feel no touch, to feel no warmth, to never eat, to never sleep, to never die, I can never forgive myself. I will never forgive myself, as I have never forgiven myself for doing the exact thing to my little brother. The men in the white coats bring forth the prisoner, leaden down with shackles. The prisoner looks up at me. The young, sad eyes are not those of a death row inmate, but of a young boy. Something about the boy, who looks somewhere around the age of ten, makes me boil with rage. Maybe it was the fact that this boy innocent and had strikingly familiar golden features. The innocence and appearance my own brother once possessed. The same age his brother was when we had committed that miserable taboo. The age my brother was, the golden features he possessed before I had trapped him inside the solitary, metal prison.

"No. I won't do it!" I declare at the top of my lungs, my voice creaking from the lack of use. I relax a bit at my declaration, something familiar returning to me. If someone were to recount this moment someday, they could say the fire had returned to my eyes. One of the alchemists in the white coats just grins and reaches in the depths of his pocket. He extracts a photo and holds it to my face. It is a picture from my old life, depicting him, his younger brother, and their childhood friend.

"No." I growl, "Leave them out of this!" The man only grins wider, waving the picture before my face. I release my hold on determination, tears silently running down my face. _Nothing can happen to her, or my brother. _I turn to the little boy who had been momentarily forgotten, permitting our golden eyes to meet.

"I'm sorry." I manage to choke out between sobs. A blinding black and red aura is sent spiraling through the room, the body of the boy and the suit of armor lay motionless and soulless in the middle of it all. It was a failure.


	4. Prevailing Hope

Death Doesn't Want Me

Part IV- Prevailing Hope

I sit at my desk blankly staring at the building piles of paper work. I grin at what I will say to Fullmetal when he comes to give his report.

"Fullmetal! Where'd you go? Ah, there you are! I couldn't see you behind all my paperwork, seeing as you're so short and all. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

I let my grin fade. I had momentarily forgotten. The Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric is gone. We hadn't found a body, but all of us know the boy will never return.

I begin to fiddle with my gloves in an attempt to push the thought of Fullmetal out of my mind. I rub the fabric between my fingers, producing small sparks. If I increase the oxygen content in the air surrounding the spark, I can set things aflame. And I'm considering doing just so to the mountains of paperwork, sitting there, mocking me!

"Colonel!" The office door swung open without warning. A smile was plastered on the usually conform face of Lieutenant Hawkeye.

"What is it Lieutenant? " I snap out of my gaze, bewildered by Riza's strange actions.

"A report, sir!" She relayed, still grinning. I questioningly take the paper from her hands, and scan its contents. _It can't be! _ I gasp involuntarily.

"Call the team!"

"Lt. Hawkeye, Second Lt. Breda, Second Lt. Havoc, Warrant Officer Falman, Sergeant Major Fuery!"

"Sir!" we chant in response to the Colonel. He nods.

"We have received a report from the west side of Central that an odd light and the screams of a child have been coming from an abandoned building." Mustang stated bluntly, "We can assume that the light could possibly be the result of alchemical transmutations, and that the scream is from a child being tortured. The only conclusion I can come to for a child to be tortured with alchemy, is that the child isn't just any ordinary child." I feel my eyes widen as I exhale a puff of smoke.

"You don't think…" I begin.

"Men!" Mustang commands.

"Sir!" We salute in response.

"The case of the disappeared State Alchemist, Major Edward Elric is no longer closed!" The Colonel bellows, "You're objective is rescue!"

"Sir. Yes, Sir!"


End file.
